Solidworks rig

[Terzo]

I have a friend doing a masters program (automotive engineering) who would like to be able to use SolidWorks at home. He was asking about an inexpensive "minimum specs" type build as well as spending more for a "recommended specs" type build.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

SolidWorks. Given that he's in school (automotive engineering) I don't imagine that the models will be as taxing as in a professional environment, but I've only used CAD for relatively basic models so I don't know resource intensive the work can become.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

Let's say $500 for the budget build and $800-$900 for the mid range build.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

He lives in England but I can probably pick up parts here for him. I have access to a B&M Microcenter, but no Fry's.

6. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

He has peripherals (keyboard, mouse, monitor) already, and I believe he has access to student-priced Windows so I'll treat that as being essentially free (don't need to factor it into costs).

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Default speeds for sure.

8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?

I believe it's a 1900 x 1080. I will double check with him and update if incorrect.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Note that it is usually not cost or time effective to choose your build more than a month before you actually plan to be using it.

Within the next month or so.

Things I'm not sure about:
A. How significant is the number of threads with regards to SolidWorks? I'd figure get a quad core at least, but does getting something with hyperthreading matter? Without knowing more, I reckon a good start would be picking up one of the Microcenter combos for an i5 Haswell (or Broadwell if those are coming out soon, I'm honestly no longer up to date with Intel's releases).

B. The SolidWorks website recommends 8 gb ram. Is that generally sufficient or would having 12 or 16 gb be desirable?

C. It sounds like a lot of people recommend getting a professional video card (e.g. Quadro). Is this a good suggestion and if so which card would you recommend?

D. If it comes down to making choices how would you prioritize parts? For example, if we could have a dual core with a Quadro, or a quad core with a regular video card, is one of these choices clearly the better option?

E. I think a prebuilt computer would be preferable assuming it's not much more expensive and especially if it can be bought/delivered in England, such as from http://www.dell.co.uk/. Just using Dell as an example, any brand would do. Maybe buy a prebuilt and a Quadro separately?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

[bononos]

Theres a thread about builds in the solidworks forums:
https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/78834?tstart=0
Solidworks seems to be mostly single threaded, in the modeling stage at least, so a 4 core might be more cost effective than a 6 core cpu. And that rules out AMD for its poor ipc. The author in the above thread also thinks highly of the low end firepros.

 

[yottabit]

You can really run it on pretty much anything if you are just doing light design work. As bononos mentioned solidworks is heavily single threaded for most tasks so you want high clock rates and IPC, typically don't want to trade that for core count unless you are doing something like rendering or simulation.

8 GB of RAM will be fine for most use cases, again unless doing large simulations or massive assemblies

You need a "supported" graphics card to enable things like RealView graphics. So that's Quadro or FirePro (or Intel P series... like Xeon P4000). Low end firepro is better value right now. Honestly especially if he is using a student edition he can likely get away with Intel integrated graphics.

An SSD can be a huge upgrade for opening large assemblies, etc. solidworks loves to use lots of file references to different locations.

I would say the ideal budget build would be something with an i5, low end Firepro, 8 GB of ram and an SSD

If you really want to go cheap you could probably have him install solidworks and test it out before deciding to get a discrete graphics card. Might be fine with integrated. Solidworks doesn't use GPU computing for anything so the graphics card mostly affects screen redraw performance (ie rotating models with lots of edges, framerate might drop) this becomes most apparent on very large assemblies. Supported device really just means solidworks has tested and verified the driver- which they dont do for consumer cards, but they will typically work

 

[Engineer]

Graphics card...graphics card...graphics card. Our designer at work has tried upgrading to SSD's, better CPU's, more memory....all helped. Nothing came close to going in full bore and getting a top of the line Qaudro video card.

Running even the eDrawings viewer on a non top video card (even on a Xeon E31330 Quad - with hyperthreading) is like pulling teeth.

 

[deerslayer]

Graphics card...graphics card...graphics card. Our designer at work has tried upgrading to SSD's, better CPU's, more memory....all helped. Nothing came close to going in full bore and getting a top of the line Qaudro video card.

Running even the eDrawings viewer on a non top video card (even on a Xeon E31330 Quad - with hyperthreading) is like pulling teeth.

This.

 

[Burpo]

"SOLIDWORKS design professionals everywhere rely on the world's most trusted graphics cards to ensure they can do their best work."

"Changes have been made in SOLIDWORKS 2014 to better leverage the GPU for large assemblies. As you can see below, you can get an average of 2x faster performance with assemblies larger than 500 components compared to SOLIDWORKS 2013."

"[With] the new NVIDIA Quadro Kepler architecture and SOLIDWORKS 2014 we can now simulate our projects much faster, and with a higher quality than ever before."
Jonathan Wells, Mechanical Engineer
Sage Cheshire Aerospace
- See more at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/solidworks-software.html#sthash.x3jvapDh.dpuf

 

[Terzo]

Thanks for the replies thus far. Bononos, you mentioned the SolidWorks forums which he's posted on as well. Right now he's leaning toward spending more, basic sample build he sent me includes:

4770k
16 gb ram
Firepro V4900
and Crucial ssd

I don't know that the 16 gb of ram is necessary, and maybe he could use a an i5 instead the i7, but everything else is in line with you guys have recommended and ultimately I guess the having more ram and the i7 isn't detrimental so as long as he's willing to spend more.